In one day, Meta’s new social media app Threads has taken the crown as the most popular alternative to Twitter. Mastodon spent nearly seven years reaching the same benchmark of 10mn sign-ups. Invitation-only rival Bluesky has a tiny fraction of the total. So do competitors like Post, Truth Social, Hive and T2.
For Meta, Threads represents low-hanging fruit. The app is linked to existing Instagram accounts, giving it a potential base of more than 100mn users in the US alone. The interface is simple. The launch coincides with deeply unpopular moves by Twitter under owner Elon Musk, including a ludicrous cap on viewed tweets.
Instagram has a rich history of aping successful rivals. Adding Snapchat-like Stories in 2016 and a quasi-TikTok feed of rolling short videos in 2020 drove engagement.